


Pittsburgh (Tell Me When It Kicks In)

by ftwnhgn



Series: Pittsburgh Verse [1]
Category: Frühlings Erwachen | Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: All they do in my stories is share a bed, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Germany, Getting Together, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Melchior is as stubborn as ever, No one believes in love here, Relationship(s), until the end at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 04:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10071491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftwnhgn/pseuds/ftwnhgn
Summary: He’s not designed for love, with what his track record is telling him. Not even Moritz could stick it out and stay, so what other person on this whole planet will? If not his best friend, who – in his own words – will always love him unconditionally and no matter what, then who, for fuck’s sake would take up the challenge and love Melchior Gabor?Well, there is someone who could.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As always, freshly finished and unbeta'd as ever. 
> 
> Apparently, I can't let go of these two and this was at first inspired by Green Light from Lorde but then a whole bunch of other songs got into the mess. One of them was Pittsburgh, a song Andy Mientus wrote for Manhattan Kids that makes me cry every time I listen to it. Although this story here doesn't follow the narrative of this particular song, I wept to it several times while writing this. So, this is me telling you to check it out.
> 
> It's in the middle of the night over here and I've been up since the crack of dawn with little to no sleep, so I am sorry if this is full of errors and grammar mistakes and fucked-up tense. I am no native speaker, as already said. But I needed to have this out of my system before I go to sleep. Have it, it's yours. 
> 
> Title: Pittsburgh - Andy Mientus, Bloodstream - Ed Sheeran

Melchior is throwing dart arrows blindly at the board, not missing despite him being nearly face-down in his drink and highly intoxicated. It’s a testament to the mechanical abilities his body has, because any other random person would miss by a mile and puke their guts out if they were him.

Well, there’s just one of him on that godforsaken planet, so cheers to that.

He has a headache lined up – he can feel it, the thudding, building up behind his eyelids and he should probably take his glasses off because they’re not helping his situation in _any_ way. But his self-destructive streak has always been the part of his personality that he’s been most proud of, so, sue him, he’ll just suffer gladly in silence. As he does every damn day, all the time, since when-the fuck-ever. His life has been a downward spiral since Moritz ditched him for some other dude, so wallowing in his physic pain is just another attempt to distract from his poor mental health.

Plus, Wendla has ditched him as well and suddenly decided that she’s above fucking around with him. Now, now, that was a real surprise, considering that she’s all about the polyamorous lifestyle and all that hippie shit people in Germany preached in the eighties.

Well, _fuck_ the eighties, Melchior thinks and swallows down the rest of his White Russian in one go, ignoring the burning in his throat from the sheer number of alchoholic beverage he threw down there tonight. He’s on his own now, without anyone, and nobody is giving a shit about _that_. So, who is he to have to respect every lifestyle choice his dumb friends make in their dumb roaring twenties, as if they’re in some Sondheim play or that one Leonardo DiCaprio movie Moritz and Ernst made him sit through. Point is, they are not and Melchior is not obliged to support them in everything, least of all the ones he loves the most.

 _Love_.

He grimaces at the thought of it, motioning to the bartender to refill his glass, adding a “Something stronger” when his glass gets removed from in front of him.

He’s not designed for love, with what his track record is telling him. Not even Moritz could stick it out and stay, so what other person on this whole planet will? If not his best friend, who – in his own words – will always love him unconditionally and no matter what, then who, for fuck’s sake would take up the challenge and love Melchior Gabor?  
  
No one, that’s the answer. But it’s not like finding a lover is Melchior’s single main goal in life. It is not. But all his friends are bothering him with it because they’re getting old and settled down and Melchior does not, or doesn’t want to, doesn’t plan to. And because they don’t have kids to fuss over yet, they take it out on him. Really, he’s the victim here, if he’d have to put the label on someone in the scenario. But is anybody listening to what he wants? No, they’re all just going around and throwing a pity party he refuses to attend or accept.

He doesn’t need their pity. Doesn’t need _anyone’s_ pity.

A new glass gets set down in front of him and Melchior picks it back up immediately to take a sip. The liquor burns even worse than before, but it’s good. It’s strong and numbs him and makes him not think about love for a whole second. So, it’s perfect.

Melchior turns around in his stool and that’s when he sees a familiar silhouette walking through the door. The light-blonde hair is unmissable, so is the perfect dark-blue suit, and so are the sharp-features belonging to a face seemingly cut from marble.

Melchior may know nothing about love, but he sure knows a thing or two about God.

And he can recognize one when he walks in in seconds, especially when he spent a good portion of his teenage years worshipping those blue eyes and that athletic body instead of going to church.

Melchior is no foreigner to the appreciation of Hans Johann Rilow.

 

*

The headache that already announced itself the evening before, hits Melchior full force in the moment when he wakes up, deciding then and there that he will possibly never open his eyes again because he is not ready to face that kind of sorrow. He squints his eyes together in agony, repressing the urge to whimper, and buries his face deeper into the skin before him.

Now, now he has to open his eyes despite the notion that his gag reflex will response to that.

Another person is in his bed – a man, _thank God_ , at least Melchior’s drunk self wasn’t too dumb – and apparently his drunken and asleep self also decided that throwing his arms around a stranger’s body and cuddling up against his upper back is a great idea. Which is not so good. Which is kind of weird of him. Which is horrible in the context of him being the most emotional-detached person he and his friends know.

“Oh my God,” Melchior can’t help but whisper, but more to himself than to anyone.

The body in his arms stirs at that, fuck, and turns around to face Melchior. Oh my God, indeed, because it’s no one less than Hanschen Rilow, whose clear blue eyes now take in his features, looking as fresh as a summer breeze, and then leaning down to capture Melchior’s lips into a deep kiss, that ends up with him licking into Melchior’s mouth and both of them panting as Melchior grips onto Hanschen for dear life, because that is surely the hottest kiss he’s ever gotten before brushing his teeth.

“Hans is enough, but God is a nice greeting too,” Hanschen says as they part, a sharp smile on his face.

His skin is just as marble and perfect as Melchior has always imagined, the muscles in his body improving his lean form to something close to perfection and his mouth – God, that mouth – is better than any dream Melchior ever had because it combines heaven and hell in a way that makes Melchior question the lack of beliefs in his life.

Might reconsider that before he has the freak-out of a life-time.

Hanschen is getting up from the bed, leaving Melchior alone in the warm sheets, to gather up his underwear from the floor, as well as one of Melchior’s few stray shirts laying around and if it’s possible to get even more attracted to people you already had a deep-sitting attraction to then Melchior is sure he is proof. My, Hanschen looked good in Grammar School and in college as well and in suits, yes, of course, but this? Melchior is kind of freaking out over seeing Hanschen so unguarded and still incredible gorgeous. He looks like a model. What the fuck, even?  
  
“Please tell me you’re not freaking out,” Hanschen asks while he picks up Melchior’s glasses and puts them on as if they are his own. _Sure thing, dude, do what you want to,_ Melchior thinks, on the verge of saying just that and falling to his knees to pray.

The last time he felt the need to pray was when he was Twelve.

What. The. Fuck.

“I’m not freaking out,” Melchior answers, his voice wavering just slightly too much for it to be blamed on exhaustion or tiredness.

Hanschen snorts, “Sure.” He’s scrolling through his phone now, having retracted it from the pocket of his suit trousers, tapping onto the screen animatedly every few moments. “You’re not regretting it, do you?” he asks after consideration in which he watched Melchior and then his phone again.

Melchior sits up and runs a hand through his hair to push it out of his face, this time seeing how Hanschen checks him out, and ignores the fever-pitch excitement in his gut to answer Hanschen’s question.

“I am not,” he begins slowly, earning himself an arch of Hanschen’s right eyebrow with that. “But I am a bit surprised and kind of just dealing with this, because I was completely shitfaced yesterday and don’t remember that much right now. So, bear with me until I had coffee.”

Hanschen still looks at him, has his eyebrow still arched but now the other one joins in on the fun of mocking Melchior, but he lets his phone sink back into the pocket of the pants in his hands. “You’re making breakfast?” He grins around the words in joy – and not that evil joy that Melchior was often enough on the receiving end of, but true pure joy, as if breakfast is the best thing that ever happened to him.

Melchior nods surely when blue eyes don’t leave him out of sight. “Yeah, yeah. Absolutely,” he says and Hanschen’s whole face breaks into a gleeful expression.

“Great!” Hanschen exclaims and walks out of the bedroom, although it’s the first time he’s in Melchior’s flat. Yeah, and what’s that even about?  
  
Melchior sighs and looks at his open door as he can hear Hanschen starting to wreak havoc in the kitchen.

“Wait! I need my glasses!” he yells and scrambles up and out of the bed to follow Hanschen.

 

*

Hanschen fits seamlessly into Melchior’s life, funnily, despite all the odds.

He fits into the space on the right side of Melchior’s bed, he fits into the free chair at Melchior’s small kitchen table, he fits into the passenger seat when Melchior is driving, not above criticizing every move Melchior’s hands do on the steering wheel or the center console. He fits into the free space in coffee shops, where Melchior goes to find some peace so he can work, and in book stores and on Melchior’s couch, annoying him until Melchior reads him _Anna Karenina_ or the daily newspaper, because he’s that old-fashioned and Melchior is too.

He’s not asking anything of Melchior, except for his time, and that is something Melchior has plenty of, so he spends it all on Hanschen – who seems to be a demanding person in any aspect of his life that isn’t involved with Melchior.

They go out a lot. There’s some party of Hanschen’s business partners or relatives or friend every other weekend and Hanschen laments about the silly people there until Melchior throws in the towel and accepts the unspoken offer to be Hanschen’s plus one. It works, somehow. They make fun of all the other guests and make-out in the bathroom until the knocking is unbearable and then they leave, often enough ending in the booth of some diner for an early morning snack.

It’s cheesy and romantic and it’s kind of unbelievable.

Melchior is not blind or dumb, never has been, so he knows that that’s the honey moon phase of their whatever and that it won’t be this way forever. Maybe Hanschen ditches him right when the magic stops. Maybe Melchior will draw the line when he gets too close or, better, they drift apart and go their separate ways and will continue their lives just like they did before Hanschen walked into the bar and Melchior drowned his morals in any vodka-related drink he could think of.

Maybe. But he will enjoy the hell out of it, while it lasts.

Their Friday evening is spent with Melchior going over essays of his students while Hanschen is propped up on the window sill right next to the desk, bare feet and sweatpants, and blond hair styled down after he showered here when he came back from work. He’s reading something on his phone, as he does all the time, but peaks over to see what Melchior is doing every few minutes, particularly when Melchior is cursing under his breath because some students are in their fourth semester and still have no idea how basic stuff works in their scientific field.

Melchior is reading over one sentence for the fifth time now and it still doesn’t make sense. He’s frustrated and tired and just wants to kick his brain out with alcohol or with a good fuck. But he knows it’s not in store tonight, not because Hanschen wouldn’t want that, but because tomorrow is an early-riser because he promised Moritz to go interior shopping with him. Moritz doesn’t know about Hanschen, obviously. Well, he knows Melchior has someone, but he doesn’t know who. He’d probably die of a stroke if he would find out. Melchior doesn’t want his best friend to die of a stroke when they’re picking out dining room tables.

“Hey, baby,” Hanschen nudges his shoulder with one of his feet and Melchior looks up from where he had put his head in his hands. “I need to tell you something.”  
  
That does not make Melchior think of the unavoidable end of their arrangement, of course not. He’s not that much of a cynic. Or at least he tells himself that when he responds with a “Shoot,” while his stomach turns itself into ugly knots. _Goddamn_ , his bitch of a body is a traitor.

“I told you about the promotion that was in store for me?” Hanschen begins and Melchior nods, but letting him go on. “I got the job offer and it sounds very promising – leading a whole team, training and supervising them and the whole nine yards, you know.”

Melchior takes one of Hanschen’s hands and squeezes it. “That sounds great,” he says and ignores how his mind tells him there is more to it, that the plane is still crashing with him inside. “And like something you would enjoy the hell out of. I mean, I know you’re already the best at your current job, but this is what you wanted, right?”

Hanschen smiles curtly and gets up from his place at the window to move behind Melchior, his hand letting go of Melchior’s to rest it on his shoulders along with his other one. “Right,” he breathes, fingers twisting the fabric of Melchior’s shirt and that’s when Melchior realizes that he’s nervous. _Hanschen_ is nervous.

“There’s just this one thing,” Hanschen sighs into Melchior’s dark hair, his nose brushing a few strands that are out of place from Melchior running his hand through them all the time.

And that’s it. That’s him breaking up with Melchior because he found something better to occupy himself with in his free-time.  That’s the plane crashing right onto ground and bursting up until there’s no survivor left.

“The position is in Pittsburgh.”

It’s not the plane crashing, but it’s damn near.

“Okay,” Melchior says slowly.

Pittsburgh. Where the fuck is Pittsburgh even? _East Coast_ , Melchior’s brain supplies helpfully. _Border to Ohio_ is the next thing in his train of thoughts. Then, _United States of America_ and this isn’t helping the situation at all when he can hear Hanschen’s breaths right above his ears.

“I can turn down the offer,” Hanschen proposes into the silence. “Say a word and I will turn it down,” he ameliorates and plants a kiss on Melchior’s head.

Melchior feels like his life has just stopped in front of a wall of red lights, like his self-destructive streak has found its peak – Hanschen is its peak – and while the rational part in him tells him that this is not about what he wants or what he needs and that America is no distance in the age of planes and social media, it doesn’t soften the blow to his less rational part, his heart.

“Don’t,” Melchior answers and grabs blindly for Hanschen’s hand, intertwining their fingers together until there’s only marble running into a bleak winter day. “It’s not worth it, believe me. You take the job offer and you will kill it there, showing them all how it’s done. You deserve that.” He wants to add, _don’t let me hold you back, I’m not worth it and we both know it. No one is worth it to stop you chasing your goals._

He can feel Hanschen nodding against his head, can feel him resting his cheek against his hair and he can feel how all his high morals and intransigent rules are starting to crumble because of a guy that nearly beat him in their last year of school.

“Okay,” Hanschen says quietly. This time, it’s him who squeezes Melchior’s hand.

Melchior takes a deep breath. “Hans, how long?” It’s the only thing he wants an answer too.

He can’t see it, but he can feel the sad smile in Hanschen’s voice when he answers “Six months. Maybe longer.”

It hangs heavy in the air between them.

 

*

It’s tough. It’s tough and there are times when it’s unbearable and it’s never enough and it’s tearing Melchior apart on the inside. It makes him scream in his bathroom until his voice is hoarse and it makes him bleary-eyed in the lectures he gives because he is tired all the time. It’s frustrating.

But Melchior tells himself it’s worth it.

They’re through four months and still kicking through the immense distance. They haven’t seen each other since Melchior has driven Hanschen to the airport on a mild Saturday and kissed him goodbye for what were five minutes and offended the conservative people who booked their flights to Mallorca. But Hanschen will be home in time for the holidays – they will have about a month – until he will certainly fly back to continue his job – his life – in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Melchior doesn’t like to think about the fact that they’re building their relationship, which is the term for what they’re having here – they both agreed on it over a long and angry phone call – without each other and not in a shared environment, but he can deal with it. He dealt with worse. He hides his heartache from their friends fairly well and while Ernst is suffering loudly and out in the open over the loss of his best friend _to The Capitalist Capital Of The World_ (he picked that up from Melchior), Melchior keeps it all inside of him until he is home and can share his pain with the four walls of his flat.

He's dealing with all of it. Doesn’t mean he deals with it in the right and most healthy way, but he deals with it. And that really is something that he has going for him. So, Melchior tries to mope as little as possible and instead counts down the days until December creeps around and Hanschen will get his ass back home, back to Melchior.

“Go to sleep,” Hanschen says, his voice not the real thing over the phone but enough to make Melchior calm down a bit. “It’s like 2am or something over there. So, sleep, Melchior. You will just regret it tomorrow morning when you can’t go on your morning run.”

Melchior chuckles, staring up at the wall of his bedroom and holding the phone to his ear. “Yeah, of course. Because I’m so good at morning runs,” he tells Hanschen.

“Well, you could have excelled, but you never wanted to join me,” Hanschen responses, probably grinning and rolling his eyes at the same time because that’s who he is, always was.

Melchior sighs, shifting his gaze over to his window. He can’t even see enough stars to look for constellations from where he’s lying on the bed.

“Only 24 days,” Hanschen reminds him when Melchior doesn’t answer anymore.

“24 days.” Melchior repeats. “That’s a fucking depressingly long time, you know that?”

Hanschen snorts. “I know that. If you haven’t forgotten yet, I’m on one receiving end of this as well. And Ernst is still acting like I got shipped off for the next world war.”

“Yeah, but that’s Ernst and you’re not mad at him for it, we both know it. He just misses you,” Melchior deadpans, a fist in his bedsheets and one arm under his head, the tiredness making his eyelids heavy.

“But do _you_ miss me?” Hanschen asks, sounding honestly concerned.

Melchior remembers when Hanschen got his heart broken by Bobby Maler and then by Ernst and then by countless other men and it makes him think about all the times Hanschen has gotten horrible soft and fearful around him, makes him wonder if this could be taking an even harder toll on Hanschen than on him. Because Melchior might feel the pain, but Hanschen is _vulnerable_.

“Of course I miss you. Every damn day, you idiot.”

 

*

“Pittsburgh is good, but it’s not this,” Hanschen says with a grin and kisses Melchior again, for what feels like the hundredth time today.

It’s his first day back and after he spent the first half with Ernst, despite the jet lag and all, he’s now back in Melchior’s bed, only in his underwear and one of Melchior’s shirts just like the first time and he’s so goddamn beautiful that Melchior is close to become an artist of some sorts to immortalize that image forever.

“You should sleep,” Melchior murmurs when they draw apart but both of them grin and they kiss again. It’s addictive and it’s been so damn long that Melchior can’t let go of Hanschen and Hanschen can’t let go of him either and it’s – honestly, words are failing Melchior because nothing can beat the real thing.

“I should sleep,” Hanschen repeats and kisses down Melchior’s neck, teeth scrapping over the sensitive skin there and already sucking a mark into it.

Melchior missed this. So much. He missed having Hanschen around him and being able to touch and kiss him whenever he wants and he missed being touched and kissed and marked by him. He missed to feel the faint trace of stubble against his neck and he missed the smell of his too expensive cologne clinging to Melchior’s clothes as well and he missed blue eyes burning into his until he can’t take it anymore. He missed Hanschen entering his flat and insulting the poor shape of his plants first thing before drawing Melchior in by his shirt to kiss him senseless before even putting all of his luggage down.

He missed Hanschen.

And even know, right here with him in his bed – their bed – he misses him as well, already starts to miss him because he knows Hanschen will leave in a few weeks to fly back to damn Pittsburgh to do something he loves and is proud of while Melchior is here in Germany doing something he loves and can’t let go of.

They should be better than this. Eleven months in and they should be better than this, better than crawling into each other until there’s no air to breath on your own and exhaustion is taking over euphoria, so they end up just facing each other, tracing each other’s bodies with their hands – well-known shapes that have to be relearned – and not saying one word to each other until the sun starts to set and Hanschen’s eyes close and his breaths even out, so Melchior has to take his glasses off for him and put them on the nightstand on the right side.

He carefully gets up from the bed and let’s Hanschen take the rest he truly needs, and takes his laptop and the few introduction papers some of his students sent him to look over with him into the living room. There are some Ghost Whisperer reruns on and Melchior lets them play quietly in the background while he works through all the assignments and the papers, sending mails out to his students before the timestamp on the head of them makes him come across as unprofessional.

When it’s around 2:45 am, he falls into bed next to Hanschen and carefully puts his arms around him like he used to. He can feel his own exhaustion of the dreading last weeks take over and for the first time in months, he drifts to sleep peacefully and in minutes.

He tells himself to cherish it.

 

*

Hanschen is on the phone and he is loud.

Melchior is at his desk, writing his last mail of the year to the dean to let him know when he’ll be back to teach classes in January, but he can’t concentrate because Hanschen is in the kitchen and he’s talking to someone and he’s not sounding thrilled.

And Melchior can’t focus, so he lets his mail rest, picks up his phone and leaves his bedroom to find Hanschen and maybe intervene in him snapping somebody’s head off.

“I don’t give a fuck, okay!” Hanschen shouts. “It’s not me who fucked this up, it’s you. So, sort it out, for heaven’s sake.”

Melchior is leaning in the doorway, but Hanschen has his back turned to him, too engrossed in his conversation to notice his boyfriend.

Hanschen huffs out an unimpressed laugh. “Well, news flash: I am not here to clean up your shit after you! Just because you couldn’t keep it in your fucking pants, doesn’t mean I couldn’t as well.” His hands are in his hair, pulling at the blond strands. “That one time did not count, okay. It did not count. And don’t go around telling others that it did. It’s your wife not mine and we never made it to-“  
  
Hanschen stops in the middle of his sentence in the moment he can hear Melchior let his own phone fall down onto the kitchen floor. It’s not shattering but it makes a sickingly high noise and Melchior just stares at him, not really responding in any way than staring at him in shock.

“Melchior, I can-“ he starts, but breaks himself off when the voice on the other end of the line starts talking again.

“No, it’s not my mess to clear. Look, I need to hang up now. I have my own shit to deal with, so fuck off and leave me alone.”

Melchior already stumbled out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. Right now, he is staring at his reflection in the mirror – he looks pale and like he’s about to throw up any minute the more of Hanschen’s words hit home and settle into the space between the smart part of him and the sick part, between his ribs and up his chest until it’s nearly choking him. He never believed in love, or being worthy of it, but he believed he had something.

Well, eye-opening to know it was all build on falsehood.

“Melchior,” Hanschen’s voice is careful and when Melchior turns around he’s the one standing in the doorway.

Melchior ignores the sickness in his bones and the boiling-hot feeling of disgust in his veins when he looks at him from across the room.

“I can explain.”

Melchior laughs without really feeling anything at all. “Oh, so you can explain? That one time? Well, how do you categorize cheating, Hans, because from what I heard right now it sounds a lot like you didn’t tell me something,” he spits out. The betrayal is pulsing through him and he wants to scream, wants to haul shit at something or someone like all the times he felt so fucking lonely because Hanschen was on the other side of the western world.

“It is not what you think that is, Melchior,” Hanschen repeats, his hands balling into fists. “I would never do that to you.”  
  
Melchior arches one of his eyebrows in disbelief and scoffs.

“That’s what you all say, isn’t it? It’s what you all say. And then you go around and do some shit anyway. But you know what? I’m sick of it, Hanschen. I had enough of it. I don’t need any of it anymore. Maybe I’m really better off alone.”

Hanschen stares at him in disbelief, like Melchior is the one who just shattered all his faith. Neither of them has one to begin with, but it’s kind of a nice reminder that everyone has something close to it in them that works as a great substitute.

“Melchior, do you hear what you say?” Hanschen asks. “Because I want to explain and I-“

“Well, I don’t want to hear it, Hans! I don’t want another bullshit excuse thrown at me. I had enough of that all my life,” Melchior cuts him off, white anger and pain – so much pain and it doesn’t stop, not even when he can see something in Hanschen shatter – and he takes a deep breath. “Get the fuck out and back to _Pittsburgh_. It seems to treat you way better than this place ever could, doesn’t it?”

He’s not looking and he’s not leaving the bathroom or responding. Not even when he can hear Hanschen shutting the front door behind him.

Not even after that.

 

*

Two months pass with Melchior being absolutely miserable and stuck with grief as if a loved one of his just died. To give him the benefit of the doubt, it definitely feels close to it and his full on black wardrobe is not suffering under it either. He’s always been dressed for a funeral about any day of his adult life, so it doesn’t really make a difference if there is one or not or if somebody died or not.

He’s heard from Hanschen, heard plenty of him, in fact, with all the times he calls Melchior and Melchior doesn’t answer and all the messages he writes Melchior that Melchior deletes without looking at. There are weekly flowers – every Friday – to match his attempts at reaching out, but Melchior lets them all rot and throws them away. He doesn’t need a daily reminder of getting stomped on and left behind for someone else in his flat.

Not that his flat is not great at being a reminder on its own.

But no one could ever stick it out – not Moritz, not Wendla, not all the others in between and neither could the one who gave Melchior hope that maybe it wasn’t all false dramatism, Hanschen. No, Hanschen couldn’t stay, couldn’t even keep it up when they were apart and while Melchior stayed faithful, well, Hanschen apparently could not. There’s not much to interpret into that phone call anyway in Melchior’s opinion.

It’s okay. Melchior has arranged himself with total ruin being his life’s way to go as payback for him turning away from God. But who the hell would ever believe in God and heaven when his life always deals him the shittiest cards? No one can blame Melchior for his stance on religions and faith and belief when he has first-hand experience that it’s not turning anything around or improving your life.

False hope, that’s what it gives you and that’s what tears you down.

It’s close to comedic how Hanschen did the exact same thing to him that made him turn away from anything holy. Really, impressive in a way only Hans Rilow is able to manage and only someone like Melchior could ever really appreciate for its sheer excellence.

He remembers when he thought that Hanschen is vulnerable and wants to laugh out loud – God knows he laughed often enough about his own misery, might be the time to laugh about someone else – because it’s funny how he ever thought Hanschen couldn’t stomach a punch when he’s an expert at throwing them around. Melchior should have known that Pittsburgh was their downfall. He should have cut all ties back then and there, but, no, he had to believe that they could make it, that he deserves to have a chance at this thing.

He thought he’s allowed to have a bit of luck too. Clearly, luck _and_ love are two virtues that are reserved for other people.

Melchior wants to laugh again, he really, really wants to, but instead he just throws up and goes to sleep, thinking about the time he wasn’t alone, when his heart didn’t feel like a block of ice.

He dreams of Pittsburgh and of lesser agony. It doesn’t match.

 

*

“I swear to God, Melchior Gabor, if you are not opening this door soon, I am going to break in!”

Melchior’s coffee cup falls down and shatters at his feet, the hot water of his coffee seeping into the bare skin of his feet and the floor, but he couldn’t care less when he feels like someone shot him in the chest multiple times at once.

That can’t be possible. Hanschen is supposed to be in Pittsburgh, fucking some other guy with a wife. Why is he here? This can’t be possible.

“Melchior! Your neighbours are already staring, but I don’t care. Open the fucking door, _now_! Have you lost all your decency or what?!”

Even if Melchior wanted to open the door, he couldn’t bring himself to do it, because he is rooted at his spot between his kitchen table and the coffee maker and his brain is working a mile per minute while his body does not.

What does Hanschen want here? Humiliate him? He’s managed to do this just fine in his absence, he doesn’t need to make it more personal than it already is. Give him his shit back? He can keep it. Melchior can’t stomach looking at it either way. Offering to be friends? Surely not. Despite Ernst worshipping the ground Hanschen walks on although he was the one who initiated the break-up, Hanschen isn’t that nice to keep it up with the rest of his exes.

So, what does he want?  
  
Melchior has no idea, or, at least his mind doesn’t come up with something that doesn’t involve a dark outlook on his own future.

“Please, Melchior. I am not above begging here and I sure hope you have noticed that because this is a first and a last at the same time. But I am not giving you up, not now and not in the distant future! So you're either going to let me in or come to your fucking door and listen to what I have to say!” Hanschen demands. “Your neighbours are still not enthralled to see me, so you’d better make a decision.”

Melchior knows it’s dumb, but he moves away from his coffee machine because his heart and his mind are not on the same side, at least not when it comes to Hanschen. His heart prefers the dangerous route rather than the safe one.

Where is the fun in safety anyway?  
  
“Melchior!”  
  
A knock.

“Gabor!”  
  
Another knock.

“I am here,” Melchior says.

It’s quiet for a short moment before he can hear a bit of shuffling, which is very likely Hanschen propping himself up into his normal stance.

“I am not opening the door,” Melchior inclines, because he is not ready to face Hanschen again. He can’t trust himself enough. “But I am here and I will listen and you can let my neighbours live their life in peace.”  
  
He can hear Hanschen sighing relieved and his heart wants to squeeze itself together until it’s not there anymore. He remembers the first time he woke up next to Hanschen and Hanschen wore his shirt and his glasses and got him to make breakfast and he wants to take it all back because his heart hasn’t stop feeling like crushed ice since he made Hanschen leave. Since the bitter taste of betrayal filled his mouth.

“Okay, that’s good, that’s great. That’s very gracious of you,” Hanschen rushes out and Melchior nods although he knows that Hanschen can’t see him.

“I was supposed to be in a meeting in Pittsburgh right now,” Hanschen then picks up again. “And after that I was supposed to be in New York for the weekend. But I couldn’t bear it anymore and after being a pain in the ass to everyone around me and especially Ernst, I decided to spent my money wisely for once and fly back here.”

Melchior feels like the rug is getting pulled out from under his feet for the second time today and maybe he will just drive a knife straight into his heart to make all these emotions stop once and for all. He’s known as the smart one, the one who thinks before he feels. Why does it seem like he lost that trait whenever he’s around Hanschen? It’s not helping him.

“And, don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up Pittsburgh, because I love Pittsburgh,” Hanschen tells him and Melchior’s heart deflates a bit more. “But I love you even more than I love Pittsburgh and I can’t live with myself, if you’re having a freak-out over nothing and I can’t set it right. Hell, it’s my job to be a diva and throw a fit, yours is to be a diva as well, but without the fits.”  
  
Melchior can’t help but grin at that.

“When you heard me on that phone, two months ago? That was Max. Max is a great coworker with a wife and he tried to hit on me a few times. I thought nothing of it, I thought we were _friends_. He had something else in mind and tried to kiss me, but I firmly told him that I am taken and that it’s off the table. Well, his wife found out he’s into guys and he wanted to blame me on it and I can’t tolerate to be blamed on shit like this. I am not a home-wrecker and I would never betray someone – you – like that. So, could you please stop being an asshole because you’re not the only one with a broken heart here, Gabor.” Melchior can hear him take in a heavy breath.  “Now let’s be real, I can’t throw away what we have, Melchior, and neither can you.”

In Melchior’s head the only thing stuck is that Hanschen said that he loves him. Hanschen admitted that he loves him. Loves him. Out of all people. Him, who’s not born or meant for the concept of love, and yet.

And _yet_.

“I am sorry,” Melchior answers, for lack of anything else to say. “I love you and I am sorry,” he then repeats a little bit louder.

“Then open the dumb door, Gabor,” Hanschen instructs.

Melchior does.

Hanschen is standing there, in black jeans and a white t-shirt and a blue button-up on top of it, his winter coat on the ground next to him. His shirt is matching the colour of his eyes, but when Melchior stumbles over the threshold and into his arms and kisses him, he doesn’t care about any of these small things.

The only thing on his mind is love. It’s ridiculous, but he can’t get it out of himself now that he’s certain of its existence. Manifested in the most mesmerizing and difficult person he ever met. And maybe that’s how it should be and nothing else is important.

He doesn’t care about anything.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are giving me life and blood in this tough time full of finals and unwritten things for uni, so if you want you can leave a comment or chat with me on tumblr (andreinbolkonsky) or twitter (xbigboysdontcry) where I keep it fresh and talk about all types of misery and cry about the hunchback of notre dame daily.
> 
> friendly reminder: you are loved, you are enough and you will achieve great things. you are right just the way you are, a living and breathing thing. keep going.


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